Sales performance management (SPM) solutions allow companies to track and analyze their sales data and other business data in various ways. Within the SPM field, there are many different and interrelated business applications, including sales compensation management (SCM) solutions, sales analytics, data management, workflow processes, etc. SPM solutions, including computer software, can be used to manage a company's compensation plans, data analysis, and other operation functions, and provide different individuals within the company with customized information related to performance and compensation. To effectively represent business processes and support complex data calculations, SPM solutions generally utilize data repositories that store numerous tables, each of which contains various data fields relevant to those processes and calculations. The vast amount of input and output data used in SPM software requires large storage and processing capabilities. Typically, many of the same data fields may be repeated across different data tables to present the same data values, which are used in conjunction with other data values in different performance management elements or calculations.
In known SPM solutions, storing the same sets of data in the same data fields across different tables results in the need for extra storage space and inefficiencies when data values in a field are updated, since the change must be made in every table that includes the same field. It can also be difficult to ensure that data values in the same fields in different tables are both “valid” (i.e. the correct data values for the business context) and “in synch” (i.e. consistent across the different tables). Furthermore, tables that contain the same data fields and sets of data in known SPM solutions are not inherently related in the system, and must be manually associated with each other by the user. Therefore, a need exists for technology that offers a more business oriented and efficient method of managing data used in SPM and other performance management solutions.